A Smart Weapons Deal

U.s. Spirits Foreign Warplanes Off The World Market

November 13, 1997

While Americans sleep, the world's bad guys - Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea - are out shopping for weapons. That's why a rare occasion for smugness last week was so satisfying.

The United States trumped the troublemakers of the world by spiriting a fleet of MiG fighter planes off the market. The United States purchased 21 MiG-29 fighters as well as some missiles and spare parts from the former Soviet republic of Moldova. That's 21 planes that might have been useful to Iran or Libya had the United States not stepped in. Several of the planes are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Moldova's interest in the sale was that it needs the money, and the United States is also chipping in some excess military supplies, food and other humanitarian relief.

Defense Secretary William Cohen declined to say what the planes cost, but said the purchase price was "quite reasonable" - $40 million, according to the Associated Press. The Pentagon has spent some $1.8 billion since 1993 under a program to dismantle nuclear weapons systems and materials dating from the heyday of the Soviet Union.

When the planes were acquired, they were disassembled and shipped to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The aircraft will be analyzed by the military to assess the threat that similar warplanes being sold by Russia might pose. Such planes are also used to represent the opposition in U.S. war games.

Consider the purchase an investment in antiterrorism. At a time when Iraq is making a lot of noise, Americans should find it reassuring that Moldova's surplus planes are sitting in Ohio instead of somewhere near the Persian Gulf.